Of Sleep and Sheep

After reading Maria Konnikova’s post about the science of sleep yesterday morning, I couldn’t get any shut-eye. She points out that, since the nineteen-eighties, the amount of time spent sleeping has declined at an alarming rate, and that, well, alarmed me.

Sleep deprivation is a serious issue. Actually, let’s make that a semi-serious issue. What’s my evidence for that? Cartoons, of course.

The sweet spot for humor is things that are bad but not perceived as all that bad. Not getting enough sleep is one of those things. Look, you can get off work if you break your leg or if you have the flu, but you can’t call in “sleepy.”

According to Google Ngram Viewer, which tracks the frequency a phrase is used over time, “sleep deprivation” is a term of relatively recent origin.

But insomnia has been a cartoon staple in The New Yorker going back to the nineteen-thirties, when, before Ambien, counting sheep was the cure-all that cured none.

And here’s a recent update of the trope:

Well, I could go on recounting the history of this type of cartoon, but that would just make me sleepy. Instead, here’s a slideshow. You can look at it now or, better yet, late at night when you can’t sleep. It sure beats watching the shopping channel.